Sunday, July 04, 2010

Andrew Rawnsley: a model of learned helplessness

The almost complete absence of genuine critical analysis in this article is staggering. So, so many elephants crowded into that room and Rawnsley just sits there, up to his nose in elephant shit, blithely muttering "Pachyderms? What pachyderms?".

This is not reform. AV is such a minor change to the electoral system that Lord Jenkins didn't even consider a referendum necessary to introduce it in his report on electoral reform. The UK's problems run far deeper than a pseudo-democratic electoral system, however. It remains a monarchy without a written constitution and governed by a plutocratic elite. Much of the electorate remains unregistered to vote and excluded from political discussion due their essential ignorance.

Any comparison of UK politics with the fundamental principles of democracy finds our little country to be grossly lacking: all citizens being equal before the law and all votes having equal weight, everyone having the opportunity to stand as a representative and their rights and liberties secured by a legitimate constitution.

Critically, these standards are centuries old and no progress has been made in the years since. Our culture has stagnated and has recently started to regress with infringements on our rights, increasing disenfranchisement and falling electoral turnouts. Where are the discussion of progress on this issue? To meet up with the basic principles of democracy our society needs to radically change. All citizens, child and adult need to clearly and precisely understand what their responsibilities to the state are as well as the rights. Technological advances enable us to deploy far more representative democratic models than the mediaeval First-Past-The-Post system. Direct Democracy, a written consititution, fully elected Houses of Parliament, a modern and independent electoral commission in charge of overseeing the administration of democracy in this country. All these things should be what our trans-Atlantic cousins call "no-brainers". And yet I challenge anyone to find mention of them in the mainstream media beyond the most laughably inadequate, mouse-step reforms such as those Andrew Rawnsley fawns over in this article.

3 comments:

Any comparison of UK politics with the fundamental principles of democracy finds our little country to be grossly lacking: all citizens being equal before the law and all votes having equal weight, everyone having the opportunity to stand as a representative and their rights and liberties secured by a legitimate constitution.

Eh? All citizens are equal before the law, everyone does have the opportunity to stand as a representative, and our rights and liberties are secured by a legitimate constitution (just because it's not codified doesn't mean it doesn't exist - and in any case, the ECHR is a written document that clearly secures our rights and liberties...)

Votes not having equal weight - well, yes, and I'd definitely support multi-member STV. The fact that *anyone* is deranged enough to oppose AV, given its obvious step-in-right-direction-ness, is frankly disturbing.

All citizens equal before the law? Yeah, no. Money retains lawyers and lawyers get you off charges. I wouldn't get legal aid and I can't afford a lawyer to get me off any charges.

Everybody has the opportunity to stand as a representative? Really, John? Because unless you have enough money to launch a PR campaign of your own and cover your own expenses for the duration of the campaign or are well known enough not to require one you stand exactly fuck all chance of getting anywhere as an independent candidate. Eg. Martin Bell was a national newsreader. See Craig Murray for further details.

Our rights and liberties are unwritten and therefore unknowable to anyone without a law degree and the time and effort to dig them out of the arcane and esoteric mass of shite that is the UK constitution. For fuck's sake, half our local law is based on the rights of pig herders in the 16th century! The ECHR is a small step in the right direction, covering human rights but fails to codify the equally important civil rights and responsibilities.

Your attitude is very uncritical John. Try and compose a mental image of an ideal system and compare it with the existing one.

Agreed. Why must we be satisfied with the offer, made first by a desperate Labour party last year, of such a bad "reform" of the electoral system, "alternative vote"? New Zealand in the 1990s showed us a democratic way to go from first-past-the-post to a fairer and party-proportional system. In 1992 the people of New Zealand were asked (a) if they want a change then (b) which of four electoral systems they would prefer! The system considered were: Mixed Member Proportional, Supplementary Member, Single Transferable Vote, or Preferential Voting.

The coalition's plans are not chiselled in stone. With an effective campaign one or more alternatives to AV and FPTP could be pushed into the public debate and so widen eventual choice.

about me

I'm actually pretty ugly and my penis is smaller than the Caucasian average. At 31 years of age I still can't grow a proper beard. I used to blog but I've pretty much given up now. You can find me on Twitter these days where I take pleasure in staring misanthropy in the face and waiting to see who blinks first.